Interview: Sebastian Lind (DK)

The scene was set for a huge blast last Friday when Sebastian Lind visited a sold-out Atlas. The day after his concert in Aarhus he visited Herning, where one of our friends from Lydtapet reviewed the show with 5/6 stars. In other word, Sebastian is and has been in superb shape on his current tour with Mont Oliver as support. We had the change to meet him behind the curtains after the show. Here is what we found out:

[chat question=”Tell us a bit about your journey from 2010, the time of your debut album, and up to now, and some of the biggest changes?“]It’s been very turbulent, highs and lows, and very unpredictable. It began with coming from almost nothing to Copenhagen to sign with universal. At that time I was like: “what will be next – a champagne-raining cloud?”. At the moment I felt that everything was happening right in front of me and all at once. I went from Svendborg (a minor city in DK) to Copenhagen and signed with two of the biggest labels in DK, Universal and Live Nation, and everything went smooth. Then at some point I realized that you couldn’t just sign with a big label, and then your music career would be fulfilled, and maybe I was a bit too young for such a big thing to happen (Sebastian was 21 at the time). Maybe I was a bit too confident at the time, and suddenly I found myself thinking that I was very young, but I learned a lot about making music, and producing records.
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[chat question=”What about the second album ‘I Will Follow’?“]Because the first album “Sebastian Lind” didn’t sold as much as expected, Universal wasn’t interested in joining in on the next one (I will follow). Because of their reaction, I was like: “Okay fine, then I’ll do something directly opposite of the first album”, and then I made something which was meant to be only for fun, and not meant to be published, but then one thing led to another, and all of a sudden the Sony department in Germany stated, that they wanted to be a part of “I Will Follow”. While all this was happening, I had some major health issues regarding my voice, which meant that I couldn’t sing. I went to many different experts, and finally found one that could correct it. I was very frustrated while my voice problems were going on, because at the same time Sony really wanted to do something, and all that my voice could manage was: “uuurghhh”. 10 days after having my voice issues fixed Sony made me perform in front of 10000 people – quite an experience. Actually a funny thing not many people know is that “Messed Up Happy Kid” was actually made before “I Will Follow”, but due to my voice issues it had to wait.
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[chat question=”You seem to have to very different personalities in your music, you have like a very acoustic and tender part, and then a more hit oriented part. Why is that?“]Well I really like to bring both sides into my music. I like the music that you can really feel like “Choose love” and “Unseen”, but I would never want to go to a concert where that was the only type of music played, and that’s partly why, I also like to make the more hit oriented music like “Fake”. So I’m very aware of being dynamic in my live performance.
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[chat question=”I really like the track Lonely King, tell me the story?“]It’s a story about how I sometimes get very lost in my work, and lost in dreaming bigger and bigger. I find it very hard to toggle off “work-mode” and sometimes that makes me neglect my friends. I can really feel that music has taken up a lot of space in my life, and some of the friends I used to share deep thoughts with are now “just” acquaintances. The song paints a picture of a dying king, who had everything and didn’t appreciate it.
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[chat question=”What has been the greatest thing that has happened to you lately regarding music?“]Spot festival 2013, I played after Marie Key in front of 1600 people, that was crazy. Actually they had to reject some people in the door, I was thrilled!
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[chat question=”What Danish upcoming bands do you find promising at the moment?“]I must go with Mont Oliver, an all-new band, which I choose to support me on various jobs here in Denmark. They’ve only published two tracks. Another runner would be “Malthe Ebert” a very talented young guy, only 18 years old, but with a lot of potential who I have helped a bit.
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[chat question=”We asked Sebastian Lind to let us know what he hears and recommends right now:“]Right now I’m listening to Radiohead, Little Dragon and Justin Timberlake
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